Manu good to go, Mason is not

Walked into the Spurs locker room earlier tonight, and was greeted with a question from Manu Ginobili.

“Do you know, is it official?” he asked me. “Am I playing tonight?”

We media types didn’t know. A few minutes later, we asked someone who did.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich says, yes, Ginobili will make his return from a groin injury tonight against Philadelphia. But his appearance won’t be much more than a cameo.

“If he got over 20 minutes, I’d be very surprised,” Popovich said.

Ginobili has not played since straining his left groin at Dallas on Nov. 18.

Elsewhere on the injury front, the Spurs will be without Roger Mason Jr., who suffered a strained left hamstring Friday night at Houston. He expects to be ready for the Spurs’ next game, Dec. 3 against Boston.

Photo by Joe Alexander

Manu Ginobili works on his shot about an hour before Sunday’s game at the AT&T Center.

Somenthig is not working OK if Manu needed to ask to a journalist if “is official” that he will play on Sunday.

POP never treated to Manu in a respectfully professional manner. Manu is right, his time in Spurs is over.

{FROM JEFF: Just to clarify … injuries like this are typically a game-time decision. Manu was wondering if we had talked to Pop yet. We hadn’t. They had already told Manu he was probably going to play … he was just wondering if we’d heard for sure yet.}